Chapter Eleven Larissa
Chapter Eleven
LARISSA
THROUGHOUT THE DAY, I entertain making a run for it. It took me long, blistering minutes to calm myself from the horrors I saw—which are still filtering through my mind—before I could finally begin to type. Ultimately deciding my only play is to buy time and Tyler’s conditional protection.
I spend the day listing out a good portion of the information while glaring at him as he chops wood, catching glimpses of his physique.
Especially when he fists off his shirt, skin slick and glistening as the tattoo on his right pec grabs my focus.
The bold markings consist of a skull and Roman numerals, which don’t look Raven- or military-related.
Before Tyler landed on my radar, I knew he served a long stint in the Marines and remained in the reserves after.
The nature of his work in that field is anyone’s guess because even Tula’s most skilled investigators couldn’t provide us with any significant information.
From what was relayed, it was almost as if he didn’t exist as a soldier.
What little was reported was that he was a highly regarded Marine.
Having been decorated on numerous occasions, as well as promoted heavily within his ranks.
The truth behind his time in the service and the nature of his missions was buried far too deep to gain anything of real use.
Although we know he has dozens of passport stamps and speaks multiple languages.
Even as a civilian and in an everyday atmosphere, he continues to move stealthily, each movement purposeful—precise.
Then there’s the clipped but clear manner in which he speaks, as if he’s doling out orders amongst his ranks rather than casually conversing.
A ‘fuck with me and find out’ vibe never too far out of reach, even when he seems in a more relaxed state.
He’s an on-edge man, and there’s nothing about him at present that resembles the ingrained image of him in my mind.
One that’s been impossible to forget since the first time I laid eyes on him—and his tattoo.
I already got a glimpse of how lethal he can be when we fought in his living room.
As trained as I am to gain the upper hand no matter the size of my opponent, I’m positive that Tyler would be impossible to get any physical leverage with one-on-one.
Not that I’m in any shape to run with my injury.
Sadly, if I do run, I have no fucking place to go.
Returning to my apartment feels like certain death.
It’s the fact that he’s hiding the details of what happened yesterday that keeps me up in arms.
If Ciro truly isn’t the culprit of yesterday’s attack, why wouldn’t Tyler just give me the details? Is he protecting me already? He has to be. Has to. But if that’s the truth of it, why not just admit it?
Seeming utterly intent on his task, he doesn’t at all look my way, preparing two more meals throughout the day that taste like unseasoned cardboard—which no amount of salt could possibly save.
He utterly ignores my existence as I continue to scrutinize him between typing, unsure if cooperating is the right move for me.
Though he relayed we were safe, I’m not entirely buying that if he confined us to hiding out with so much force at his disposal.
A man with any number of agencies available on speed dial to safeguard us, and we’re isolated? Alone?
Knowing it’s pointless to question him anymore for the moment, and frustrated that he won’t respond with anything worth hearing, I keep typing until my eyes begin to blur.
Back in the tent later that night, I allow him to give me another pinch of morphine just to be able to sleep. Just after the stick of the needle, I ride the wave and drift into a memory.
“Larissa, get out of the way!” Roc booms as he pushes past me and rushes to where my mother floats in the tub, life slowly seeping out of her.
“Ciro!” Roc shouts for Papa as he gathers my mother to him, screaming frantically for help as I stand paralyzed, watching in a stupor as mother’s gaze glosses over as she threatens to leave us.
I once heard Ciro tell one of his captains that ‘death is the only way out of our family,’ and by Cosima DiCicco’s actions tonight, she wants hers enough to strengthen that truth.
Emotionless arctic-blue eyes lock with mine before they blaze past me to where Roc holds her in the tub as my father’s footfalls echo in approach.
In the next second, Ciro appears in the doorway of the bathroom and pauses a few steps in, taking in the scene, reading the writing scribbled on the wall as my brother screams at him in fury. “What did you do?!”
Seeming unaffected, Ciro doesn’t bother answering.
Instead, he berates my mother, who’s clinging to her life, lying limply in my brother’s arms, where he’s cradling her.
Roc’s clothes soaked in the scarlet-tinted water as Ciro reprimands her.
“Of course you do this, Cosima. Of course you do this now!”
Unresponsive to his rant, she stares blankly at no one as the dark red letters burn themselves into my memory. My mother’s blood proclamation of the man she married—MOSTRO.
Faint, soft fingertips run over the top of my scalp and through my hair, dragging me into consciousness.
My eyes pop open, and I realize I must have imagined the touch when I turn to see Tyler sitting feet away, adjacent to my makeshift mattress, an open book in his palms. He reads in the dim light, his eyes briefly hooking mine over the top of his book before he flips a page.
Even with his presence, the images from my dream threaten to overrun my relief as I lay back in bed, remembering the day my mother got home from the hospital and the horrors that followed. Hearing myself swallow hard, I loosen my tongue for the first time since that night.
“Ciro fucked my aunt Caliste, my mother’s sister, days after their twentieth wedding anniversary,” I whisper across the darkened space, staring up at the pitch of the tent.
The screen at the top is now open, allowing a decent view of the faintly star-dotted sky and the dark gray clouds snaking between them.
“This was right after the huge celebration Ciro had at our house, toasting his wife in front of the entire family. Ignacio already in her belly. She caught them in the act in our stables. Her husband and her closest sister.” I swallow, trying to imagine what it felt like for her.
“A week later, she attempted to take her life. She wrote ‘monster’ on the wall with the glass she used to slash her wrists. With her own blood. Ciro barely lifted a finger as she was bleeding out, naked, in a bathtub in front of her teenage son and young daughter. Just after, Ciro hired a doctor to admit her for some time away. Quietly. Always quietly. Through one of the house staff, word of what happened spread to the rest of the family. So, when she returned, Ciro’s wrath was waiting.
He beat her with a belt for weeks as punishment.
He was so infuriated by the ‘mess’ she made, he would pull his belt at the dinner table in front of us and his captains.
Punishing her for reacting to his infidelity with her own sister.
For being so hurt by it that she wanted to leave this world, leave us. ”
I don’t bother looking over to Tyler, keeping my tone low.
“He went to Italy specifically for her when he was twenty-nine because he caught a glimpse of her at mass during one of his visits home. She was only seventeen. From then on, he wooed her with grand gestures, declaring his love and devotion before eventually begging her to be his child bride when she turned eighteen. From the way my mother told it, it was the greatest celebration they’d had in decades in her tiny Italian village.
They honeymooned for three months, pregnant when they arrived at the mansion he’d bought for her here in America.
In Asheville. She used to reminisce about their early days with me when I was a little girl.
She would spend days telling me of the man who saw her in church and showered her with his love and devotion until she had no choice but to agree to a life with him.
He’s punished her for choosing him ever since she discovered who he truly is.
His imagination running rampant with inventive ways to dole it out over the years since.
And oh, how he’s succeeded. I’m convinced she overlooked everything he’d done before that day.
Still high from those stories, from her memories of the past, and from the idea of the man she believed him to be.
She might have survived that night, but the mother I knew slipped away, day by day, an underweight zombie by the time she gave birth to Ignacio.
” I shake my head. “But that’s what monsters do, isn’t it?
How they thrive. Terrorizing their victims, keeping them living in fear.
Coming up with creative ways to keep them in that state. ”
I finally glance over to see Tyler’s focus still on his book, though his eyes aren’t moving.
“You remind me of them both.”
It’s then he lifts his molten-bronze gaze over the top of the book to hold mine. I don’t bother trying to gauge what’s there, if anything, as I sink into the pile of blankets and turn my back to him before eventually falling back into a fitful sleep.
“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”
—Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince